# Gonna be exciting.......



## glhs837

So this giant steel topper will be bolted or welded to that even lager one in the distance. Then it will use just three motors to rocket to 50,000 feet, then tip over and free fall horizontally like a skydiver for over 45,000 feet, controlling itself solely with those giant moveable flaps, then relight the rockets, which pivot, and landing on a concrete pad thats a few hundred feet away from the launch point. Or, it will turn itself into a smoking hole in the Gulf, as it's a safe bet the trajectory works like Falcons landing at Kennedy, where they are actually aimed a bit offshore and course correct for the pad after ensuring everything is working for the landing.


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## vraiblonde

When is this happening?


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## glhs837

vraiblonde said:


> When is this happening?




Unsure, since there are a few events between now and then that add uncertainty. Could be as soon as two weeks, but that's pretty sporty. More likely between three and four weeks from now. For those of us who follow events at Boca Chica, there are dedicated folks on the ground giving us daily updates. I'll post here as things progress.  After mating, there will be another static fire, maybe a wet dress rehearsal or two.


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## vraiblonde

glhs837 said:


> Unsure, since there are a few events between now and then that add uncertainty. Could be as soon as two weeks, but that's pretty sporty. More likely between three and four weeks from now. For those of us who follow events at Boca Chica, there are dedicated folks on the ground giving us daily updates. I'll post here as things progress.  After mating, there will be another static fire, maybe a wet dress rehearsal or two.



Do, because we'll be in South Padre Island on Nov 1 and it would be pretty cool to see a launch.


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## glhs837

Looks like they are moving faster than I thought. They tested the Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters last night, and right now looks like they are getting ready to stack the nose section here shortly. This is the youtube channel of one the constant video feeds. Always on 24/7, they man it up with commentators when exciting stuff like static fires happens.


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## glhs837

Mated up, welding underway. 









						SpaceX installs first high-altitude Starship's nosecone
					

For the first time ever, SpaceX has stacked a flightworthy Starship prototype to its full height, leaving just one major step to go before the rocket will be tasked with an unprecedented 15 km (~50,000 ft) flight test. On October 21st, after much anticipation, SpaceX joined the first...




					www.teslarati.com


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## glhs837

And here she is, SN8, no quite ready to fly. Still needs a few tests before then. 165 feet tall. Keep in mind, this is only the second stage of the system, which is boosted high enough that three engines can take it to orbit. From where those cables enter the "manway" or "manhole" to the tip is mostly empty space and in future iterations will hold people (up to 100 of them) or cargo, or some combination of both. Right now, all that's there is one of two header tank that holds enough fuel for the landing burn. The other header tank is down between the main tanks. 

Space X has pitched a specialized variant of this as a lunar lander. Which unlike the other ones, can land, and then take of, not having to leave a stage behind like Apollo did.


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## glhs837

The bigg'un is a render of the full stack, looks like SN8 flies within a week from today, nobody knows when yet.


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## Sneakers

Hate to say it, but it kinda looks like something you might find in a backyard in England.  A do-it-yo-self.


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## Kyle




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## glhs837

Sneakers said:


> Hate to say it, but it kinda looks like something you might find in a backyard in England.  A do-it-yo-self.



In a way, yes, I mean really. steel rings? But when you do the math on reentry heat, and cryogenic fuels and material cost and speed of build, this all works. And it's all usable for many many launches, you don't throw them away in the ocean. Land, refuel, and launch again.


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## glhs837

Vrai, you guys might hear tonight's static fire, all three engines, but only for a second or two WDR was earlier, they look to be about 30 minutes to an hour and a half away from that static fire. Test, so all times are variable. Right now it's getting ready to fuel, then "chill" the engines so they dont suffer thermal shock when the cryogenic gases start to flow.


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## glhs837

Moving fast, might be less than 5 minutes or so....


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## glhs837

607 to 610pm CST looking like the time


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## Merlin99

still in one piece, must have worked


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## glhs837

Three engine static fire 608PM on that feed. Looks to have gone fine, all that stuff lying out and to the right could have been badness, could have been frost blowing off things. After, if it was a success, comes the 50,000 test flight........... most likely in the next seven days.


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## glhs837

Turns out that stuff was the Martyte coating on the concrete pad. Couldn't take the power of the Raptor motor, thin shards flew, caused some damage. Tonight they did anither static fire, @vraiblonde  might have heard it.


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## glhs837




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## glhs837

Fun fact, Martyte was developed and patented by Martin for making tougher launch pads for rockets. 

Anyway, @vraiblonde , launch is looking to be a go for Monday, as much as any developmental launch is anyway. Here's what an SPI resident had to say when asked where to watch from. 



> I would recommend Isla Blanca Park. It can be seen from Dolphin cove and from the amphitheater to the statute from the bank. It's $12 to bring a car in or park outside and walk in for free.




This things going to 50,000 feet, then tipping on it's side and falling like a skydiver from that height until a couple thousand feet up when it's flipping vertical to land....... win or lose, it's gonna be crazy to see/hear. Wonder what sort of sound it makes free falling..


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## vraiblonde

glhs837 said:


> Anyway, @vraiblonde , launch is looking to be a go for Monday, as much as any developmental launch is anyway. Here's what an SPI resident had to say when asked where to watch from.


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## glhs837

Still on for Monday, will be a SpaceX live webcast, like they do the /falcon launches. Expect a bare minimum of drone coverage up to 25,000 feet, hopefully they borrowed the NASA high chase bird. Test window is 0900 EST to 1800. With a fallback to Tuesday, of course. I'll be throwing the feed up on the big screen which I can see past my work monitor. 





__





						WB-57 - JSC | NASA Airborne Science Program
					






					airbornescience.nasa.gov
				





This news report shows the exclusion zone pretty well. 









						SpaceX planned 9 mile launch, 'self-destruct' zone over Gulf
					

SpaceX came close to hitting the launch button on an early November flight up to 50,000 feet (9.4 miles) at its Boca Chica launch site, according to federal and state emails.




					www.krgv.com


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## glhs837

Flight pushed back to No Earlier Than (NET) Wed, with another static fire on for tomorrow.


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## 1stGenSMIB

glhs837 said:


> Flight pushed back to No Earlier Than (NET) Wed, with another static fire on for tomorrow.


Awesome...thought I'd missed it. thanks for the feed a few posts back.


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## glhs837

Aaaaannnnnnd now its NET Thursday, which I want to happen, but a push wont bother me, driving down to Jax which means I'll need to pull over and watch on the phone.... now I want it to slide to Sunday so I can watch on the biiiig screen.


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## glhs837

This is what we've been waiting for.

https://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/deta...fS6tJ9EtRnHBs_uyBfW-kr2qJAT4oBCwyan6FqSYBxaIE


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## vraiblonde

glhs837 said:


> Aaaaannnnnnd now its NET Thursday, which I want to happen, but a push wont bother me, driving down to Jax which means I'll need to pull over and watch on the phone.... now I want it to slide to Sunday so I can watch on the biiiig screen.



We just got the word from SPI that it's Thursday but they didn't specify a time of day.  I'm guessing they don't really know until that morning, is that right?


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## glhs837

vraiblonde said:


> We just got the word from SPI that it's Thursday but they didn't specify a time of day.  I'm guessing they don't really know until that morning, is that right?



Well, even that morning we wont know, it's the sort of thing were you'll just have to leave two windows open, I recommend Labpadre Nerdle Cam, and the SpaceX webcast. The Lab crew is pretty good and have the launch sequence down pretty well. Me, if I'm home, I'll have Lab on the computer and SpaceX on the smart TVs youttube channel. 

But Thursday is out, heres the text of the NOTAMS, or Notice To Mariners that shuts down airspace. 



			0/8423 NOTAM Details
		



Issue Date :​December 02, 2020 at 1623 UTCLocation :​BROWNSVILLE, TexasBeginning Date and Time :​December 04, 2020 at 1400 UTCEnding Date and Time :​December 06, 2020 at 2300 UTCReason for NOTAM :​TO PROVIDE A SAFE ENVIRONMENT FOR ROCKET LAUNCH AND RECOVERY PURSUANT TO 14 CFR SECTION 91Type :​Space OperationsReplaced NOTAM(s) :​N/A*Jump To:      *​*Affected Areas
Operating Restrictions and Requirements
Other Information*

*Affected Area(s)**Top*​*Airspace Definition:*Region bounded by:
Latitude:Longitude:FRD:From:25º57'00"N97º14'00"WTo:26º04'00"N97º14'00"WTo:26º05'00"N97º03'00"WTo:26º00'00"N96º59'00"WTo:25º54'00"N97º02'00"WTo:25º57'00"N97º14'00"W
Altitude: From the surface up to Unlimited*Effective Date(s):*From December 04, 2020 at 1400 UTCTo December 06, 2020 at 2300 UTC


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## glhs837

SpaceX finally put up the livestream, which indicates they think they are ready. Goes live 7am tomorrow....


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## glhs837

If anyone wants to know exactly how much the test article this is, spend a few minutes playing with this super zoomable image. You can see all the bumps and bruises, every hand written note in Sharpie, the fact that the body flaps are held closed with hardware from Harbor Freight....  





__





						EasyZoom
					

Share huge gigapixel high-resolution images from microscopy, photography, astronomy




					www.easyzoom.com


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## Sneakers

Sneakers said:


> Hate to say it, but it kinda looks like something you might find in a backyard in England.  A do-it-yo-self.





glhs837 said:


> ...the fact that the body flaps are held closed with hardware from Harbor Freight....


Like I said.....


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## glhs837

Sneakers said:


> Like I said.....



I see "dont sweat fidelity you dont need yet"  Although the electric motors to drive those flaps are just ripped right off the Tesla production line as is the battery pack powering them. But again, this is a highly disposable test article with a stated 33.333333 chance of completing the flight intact. They have Serial Numbers 09 through 16 in various stages of assembly. 09s about done except for adding rocket motors, while 16 is starting to get stacked.


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## vraiblonde

glhs837 said:


> SpaceX finally put up the livestream, which indicates they think they are ready. Goes live 7am tomorrow....



We got a message that said launch would be some time between 7am and 6pm.  Elon Musk must have been a cable guy in his past life.....


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## glhs837

vraiblonde said:


> We got a message that said launch would be some time between 7am and 6pm.  Elon Musk must have been a cable guy in his past life.....




 Yep, big window, lots of things need to go right in a long sequence, so they baked in a lot of slop. Nothing sucks worse than busting your azz all day long to got the damn test article ready and lose your range window.... They can fill it, empty it, even swap a motor if need be. And still launch tommorow.


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## GURPS

glhs837 said:


> If anyone wants to know exactly how much the test article this is






but there is rust



I wonder how much weight is saved not painting the damn thing white


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## glhs837

GURPS said:


> but there is rust
> 
> 
> 
> I wonder how much weight is saved not painting the damn thing white




Not so much weight as the fact that this thing will be undergoing reentry heat. The orbital ones will be covered on the "underside" by heat resistant tiles. This pic shows a robot installing them on a test piece. Remember, these are to be mass produced rockets, and so the processes must be fast and reliable and the finishes durable. So no paint no, Faberge eggs for heat shielding solutions. What you will see on later ones is a mirror polish on every surface not covered in heat shield tiles. 







So every surface on the "underside" will be protected. The upper will be straight stainless steel.


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## glhs837

Feed goes live in 90 minutes, already 24,000 people on it  Of course, there is no way of knowing how long after the feed goes live that they will attempt a launch.

Right now the Nerdle Cam looks amazing


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## glhs837

Dont give up the ship!!!! Window goes til 5pm CST, flaps are spread, and we just heard that the NASA WB-57 chase aircraft is on its way down from Houston....... That bird will record from 50-60,000 feet. Still might cancel, but hasnt yet.!!!!!!!


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## vraiblonde

Ugh.  Everyone in the campground was at the Sunset Deck to watch the launch.  We got to the countdown and....big nope.


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## glhs837

vraiblonde said:


> Ugh.  Everyone in the campground was at the Sunset Deck to watch the launch.  We got to the countdown and....big nope.




That's test. At 1.3 seconds on the clock, one of the Raptor engines commanded an abort. No idea why yet. Plan is to go again tomorrow, assuming the abort was for something simple. Worked out for me, what with making dinner and running errands, I ended up on a feed that was 20 minutes behind reality and would have missed it...... dodged that bullet.


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## glhs837

Window opens again at 8am. Back on the feeds. Since SpaceXs wont go live until about 10 minutes prior to launchm if you want more heads up, watch either the Labpadre Boca Chica or NASAspacefilght.com youtube channels. 8,000 folks watching LP, 15,000 watching NSF right now.


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## vraiblonde

glhs837 said:


> Labpadre Boca Chica.



Thank you!  This is the one we had up yesterday waiting for the launch but I couldn't remember the name of it.

Current live stream:


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## glhs837

vraiblonde said:


> Thank you!  This is the one we had up yesterday waiting for the launch but I couldn't remember the name of it.
> 
> Current live stream:





Acutally, after watching both for a while, I'm preferring the NSF feed, they just pointed out that the Temporary Flight REstriction has been activated, further indicating intent to light this candle.


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## glhs837

Propellant loading underway.........


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## Sneakers

countdown shows 30 seconds....

'squeeze me.... minutes.


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## glhs837

Yeah, sometime "soon" assuming there's not another scrub............ pins and needles.........


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## glhs837

Just the two streams I'm watching have almost 175,000 people watching.....


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## Sneakers

On hold.  Had to replace the battery in the remote camera....


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## vraiblonde

4:40 CST is the new projection.

I rushed to the grocery store, and rushed back so I wouldn't miss it.....then they pushed it back another hour.


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## stgislander

4:45 CST now is the scheduled launch.


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## glhs837

vraiblonde said:


> 4:40 CST is the new projection.
> 
> I rushed to the grocery store, and rushed back so I wouldn't miss it.....then they pushed it back another hour.




Yep, managed the dogs evening feeding and walks around this  Shoulda seen me when the SpaceX feed went live, I had given up on them doing a stream and flipped the huge screen over to NASASpaceFlight, and then with tow minutes to go I'm desperately trying to get the SpaceX feed back up..... I'm not going to not see those inside the skirt shots on my laptop.......


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## stgislander

The guys from NASA Space Flight are hilarious.


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## Loper

well that didn't land well.


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## Sneakers

Ouch.    Looked like everything went terrific, and when it went inverted to land, I was thinking, wow , just like the movies in the 40s and 50s!  And then the realization of ground proximity.....


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## stgislander

Loper said:


> well that didn't land well.


Space X seems to consider it a success.


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## vraiblonde

That was really cool!  We could see it lift off, tracking it up up up, it disappeared, and then we saw it coming back down.  Looked like it was coming in too fast and then it righted itself and TOUCH......BOOM!  It shook the deck and we're probably 5 miles across the South Bay.


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## glhs837

stgislander said:


> Space X seems to consider it a success.



Certainly was a success. They were trying three main things never done before. They accomplished 2.9 of those. If that second engine had stayed lit at the end, it would have landed. The next rocket is literally already built and ready to fly. So it was a success since they will figure out the issue with landing and fix that.


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## stgislander

glhs837 said:


> Certainly was a success. They were trying three main things never done before. They accomplished 2.9 of those. If that second engine had stayed lit at the end, it would have landed. The next rocket is literally already built and ready to fly. So it was a success since they will figure out the issue with landing and fix that.


And they are saying when it did hit, it hit the smack center of the landing pad.


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## glhs837

stgislander said:


> And they are saying when it did hit, it hit the smack center of the landing pad.



And it didn't appear to cause and damage to the infrastructure there either


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## glhs837




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## glhs837

This video highlights one of the three main things, the transition from upward flight to a stable freefall. Note those RCS thrusters in the nose helping set the roll so the flaps were set up for success.


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## glhs837

@vraiblonde , 

Someone posted this, and pointed out that everybody on SPI is inside that red circle......


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## Sneakers

One of the video sources for the live flight was shot by someone on SPI, their name and credits were in the vid.


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## vraiblonde

glhs837 said:


> Someone posted this, and pointed out that everybody on SPI is inside that red circle......
> 
> View attachment 153722



Can you see me waving?


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## vraiblonde

glhs837 said:


>




The comments from the bots on that tweet are breathtakingly ignorant.  You'd think by now those people wouldn't have the power to still shock me.


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## glhs837

vraiblonde said:


> The comments from the bots on that tweet are breathtakingly ignorant.  You'd think by now those people wouldn't have the power to still shock me.


 I saw someone on reddit claim that the whole starship effort was a money laundering scheme....


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## vraiblonde

Let's see if this works.....

This is the same vantage point I had watching it.  Not my video, also there's some swears so turn your sound down if you get the vapors over that sort of thing...


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## Kyle

Waited just a little too long to hit the thrust.


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## glhs837

Kyle said:


> Waited just a little too long to hit the thrust.



Nah, timing was right on the money, even slowed enough, then they ran out of pressure in the methane header tank. See, the engines are gravity fed from the main tanks. But once you flip it horizontal, that fuel cannot reach the feed lines anymore. So they have header tanks, one for LOX, one for methane. They are pressurized from Carbon Overwrapped Pressure Vessels (COPVs). On earlier SNs, the COPVs were visible as the black cylindrical tanks. Now they live inside the skirt with the engines. The header tanks are the small ball shapes, the methane one one between the large tanks built into the "common dome" the separates the LOX on the bottom from the methane on top, and the LOX header ball in the nose. 






So after the flip, they switch fuel feeds from mains to headers. Which worked perfectly, as two engines fired right up and nailed the flip. If you watch Vrais vid, you can see the rocket slow almost to a stop a few hundred feet up. Then they ran out of pressure in the methane header, and lost one engine, which started burning green. Thats when it sped back up and impacted. That green is what they call an "engine rich mixture" as the engine, lacking methane to burn with the LOX, burns the copper in the bell instead.


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## glhs837

I thought this was an animation until I saw the sample heat sheild tiles and then the fire.... This was from a camera basically right at the landing pad..... watch those 500,000lb thrust engines dance to make the flip and them stabilize the craft.......... When you understand exactly what an amazing feat of software and hardware that is..... combined with the aero control of having giant flaps skydive a 120ton 16 story building......... Even Bezos was impressed 

Just watched it again, noted how the nose flaps stayed deployed to maximize drag on the nose during the flip while the tail flaps folded up, nice touch. This isnt slow motion, it's a real speed feed.


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## Sneakers

glhs837 said:


> I thought this was an animation until I saw the sample heat sheild tiles and then the fire.... This was from a camera basically right at the landing pad..... watch those 500,000lb thrust engines dance to make the flip and them stabilize the craft.......... When you understand exactly what an amazing feat of software and hardware that is..... combined with the aero control of having giant flaps skydive a 120ton 16 story building......... Even Bezos was impressed
> 
> Just watched it again, noted how the nose flaps stayed deployed to maximize drag on the nose during the flip while the tail flaps folded up, nice touch. This isnt slow motion, it's a real speed feed.


Great perspective.


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## glhs837

The remnants of yesterdays test article, SN8. Should be scraped clean by Monday when SN9 rolls out to the launch pad. I expect the next flight is less than three weeks away........ Adding more pressure to the header tanks should be easy enough.


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## Sneakers

Almost looks like a scene from ID4.


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## itsbob

glhs837 said:


> The remnants of yesterdays test article, SN8. Should be scraped clean by Monday when SN9 rolls out to the launch pad. I expect the next flight is less than three weeks away........ Adding more pressure to the header tanks should be easy enough.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 153763


I like it when people are in the frame and put the size into perspective..


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## glhs837

itsbob said:


> I like it when people are in the frame and put the size into perspective..




Easy to lose sense of the scale, then this makes it real.


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## itsbob

Just a guess, but I'm thinking they aren't re-using any of that one.


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## glhs837

itsbob said:


> Just a guess, but I'm thinking they aren't re-using any of that one.



Nope, but when someone tweeted asking Musk to keep that nosecone, he agreed it will be kept. I wonder how the Tesla batteries and motors that powered the flaps came out


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## glhs837

So, here's an overhead by a guy who rents a small aircraft and flies around the site on a regular basis. Regular little micro industry springing up to watch over every aspect of this effort  Same for the Tesla Gigafactories, there are drone operators who do daily flyovers of those sites. Initially security got onto people, they tweeted Musk, who told them as long as the drone operators didn't cause any danger, let them be. 

In any case, here's SN8s final resting place. Link to super high res image you can pan around. Landing legs, downcomer, thrust puck, dome structures, it's all there, doesnt look like anything of consequence went too far.  
	

		
			
		

		
	








			https://i.redd.it/5o9i1wsubn461.jpg


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